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Kaj_Sotala comments on Questions for Moral Realists - Less Wrong
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That there are many possible moral intuitions or axioms that one could base one's morality on, with no objective criteria for saying which set of intuitions or axioms is the best one? Your basic axioms say that (to simplify a lot) personhood grants rights and morality is about respecting those rights, while a utilitarian could say that suffering is bad and pleasure is good and morality is about how to best minimize suffering and maximize pleasure. Since all morality ultimately reduces to some kinds of axioms that just have to be taken as granted, I am in turn confused about what it would even mean to say that there are is only one correct set of them. (There obviously is some set of axioms that is the only correct one for me, but moral realism seems to imply some set that would be the only correct one for everybody.)
Well, yes, I suppose this is literally what that would mean, but I don't see much reason to call any particular thing chosen out of a grab bag "morality" instead of "prudence" or "that thing that Joe does" or "a popular action-tree-pruning algorithm".
Your theory of morality is certainly complex and well-thought out, but I think is based on an assertion "persons have rights, which it is wrong to violate" that isn't established in any sort of traditionally realist way. Indeed, I think you agree with me that since absolutism theory is false, only those who prefer to recognize rights (or, alternatively, are caught in some regulatory scheme that enforces those rights) have a reason to recognize rights.
Alternatively, as Kaj mentioned, there are other systems of morality, like utilitarianism, that also capture a lot of what is meant by morality and there aren't any grounds to dismiss them as inferior. In an essay I wrote, "Too Many Moralities", I make the place I choose to carve reality around the word "morality" as to whether the “end” holds as its goal acting not with regard to only the self, but rather with regard to the direct or indirect benefit of others. If does, it counts as “morality”, and if it doesn’t, it does not. I don't personally yet see any reason why a particular theory deserves the special treatment of being singled out as the "one, true theory of morality".
I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter because it could help me understand (and perhaps even sympathize with) the unitary perspective a lot more.
Hmm. I'm not sure I understand your perspective. I'm happy to call all sorts of incorrect moralities "things based on moral intuition", even if I think the extrapolation is wrong, does that help?
Why do you think their extrapolation is wrong? And what does "wrong" mean in that context?
I'm not sure I know what you mean by the first question. Regarding the second, it means that they have not arrived at the (one true unitary) morality, at least as far as I know. If someone looks an optical illusion like, say, the Muller-Lyer, they base their conclusions about the lengths of the lines they're looking at on their vision, but reach incorrect conclusions. I don't think deriving moral theory from moral intuition is that straightforward or that it's fooled in any particularly analogous way, but that's about what I mean by someone extrapolating incorrectly from moral intuitions.
I think that he meant something like:
Sorry for so long between this response and the previous one, but I'm still interested. With the Muller-Lyer Illusion, you can demonstrate it's an illusion by using a ruler. Following your analogy, how would you demonstrate that a incorrect moral extrapolation was similarly in error? Is there a moral "ruler"?
Not one that you can buy at an office supply store, at any rate, but you can triangulate a little using other people and of course checking for consistency is important.
So what is moral is what is the most popular among all internally consistent possibilities?
No, morality is not contingent on popularity.
Note: What I think Alicorn is saying (And I think it makes a of of sense), is that those "axioms" can be derived from the notion of "personhood" or "humanity". That is, given that humans are the way there are, from that we can derive some rules about how to behave. These rules are not truly universal, as aliens would not have them, or be in any way obliged to come up with them. (Of course, they would have there own separate system, but calling that system a form of morality would be distorting the meaning of the word.)
No. Personhood ≠ humanity. If we find persony aliens I will apply the same moral system to them. Your interpretation seems to cross the cosmetic features of what I'm saying with some of the deeper principles of what Eliezer tends to say.
Ah. OK, sorry for misinterpreting you. This is just what I got from what you wrote, but of course, the illusion of transparency comes into play.